Leeds Young Carers

Who is a young carer?

A young carer is a child or young person under the age of 18 who looks after or helps to look after someone who has an illness, learning or physical disability, experiences mental ill health or has a difficulty with drugs or alcohol.

A young carer usually takes on practical and/or emotional caring tasks that would normally be expected of an adult. This means doing things like cooking, cleaning, shopping, giving medication or talking and helping when the person they care for is upset.

Caring tasks can look very different, a young carer might be doing different things than mentioned above, but that doesn’t mean that they are not a young carer.

How are young carers supported in Leeds?

Looking after someone can sometimes take up a lot of time and it can be very difficult to cope with everything. Going to school, meeting up with friends and the young carer doing the things they enjoy can be hard for them to fit in.

The first service or professional a young carer or family member speaks to about the care they are providing has the responsibility to explore this further and find out what the family feel they need.

Services in the area work with children, young people and their families to find out the best way to get support. It could be from a range of services including school or our Young Carers Support Service.

The important thing is that the child, young person and family have been able to fully talk about what is happening for them, including what is going well, what they are finding difficult and get support with understanding which service is best placed to support them and how to access it.

Professionals working with young carers

If you think that a child or young person may be providing care for a family member we have developed the Brief assessment tool. The Brief Assessment tool will help you understand the type and amount of care being provided, the impact it is having and inform next steps in line with the ‘No wrong door for young carers’ pathway. Leeds has a graduated response to supporting young carers and recognises that the needs of young carers and their families can sometimes be met by universal and targeted services. Only when there are high levels of care which legislation refers to as inappropriate and/or excessive would our service provide direct support through the allocation of a Young Carers Practitioner. To refer, we require a completed Brief assessment tool and Understanding me and my family. Please read the referral guidance fully and any questions please don’t hesitate to contact us. 

Referral guidance

Training for professionals

We Are Young Carer Friendly Leeds (WAYCFL) programme is a bespoke package of information, resources and training, which enables settings to review their current young carer identification and support mechanisms, and establish a robust action plan to improve outcomes for young carers. The programme ensures among other things, that settings have a Designated Lead for Young Carers and staff are trained and skilled to be able to identify, support and appropriately refer young carers in Leeds.

Practice Development Sessions provide an opportunity to develop knowledge, increase confidence and improve the identification and support for young carers and their families. We have a series of online practice development sessions that any practitioner can individually book on to. Requests for a team or service specific practice development session can also be made where we develop a bespoke programme of support.

To book a place on a Practice Development session or find out more about bespoke packages of support including our WAYCFL programme please complete our enquiry form.

Parents and young carers

We want you to feel confident speaking to the professionals involved in supporting a young carer – and to understand what professionals may need to do in order to get support from services like Leeds Young Carers.

You can contact us for advice, or complete a self-referral form here.